<p>Hi, I am going to be a transfer student to Northwestern or Notre Dame this fall. I am still deciding and I ask for your help. I have been to both campus, and I like both. Getting into medical school is priority for me. Therefore, I am going to make a decision totally based on which school would help me most.
I am more familiar with Notre Dame, and I am actually doing research there. Therefore, I have more questions about Northwestern.
I am going to be a junior, and I finished all premed requirements. I heard classes such as orgo and biology are typical weed-out courses at NU, and I am curious if other science classes including higher level ones are similar. Also, are those distribution classes hard? I am not a native speaker, and thus that is one of my concerns.
Somehow I learned that Notre Dame has a slightly higher placement rate, and the accepted students there have an average MCAT score of 31, which is lower than that of NU, 33-34. Does that mean NU students are smart, but due to the hard classes, they have a slight disadvantage in getting a good GPA and therefore medical schools?
I have more connections at Notre Dame. But Northwestern has a medical school. Do undergraduates at NU take much advantage of medical school resources? I heard from NU premed advisor that NU medical school gives preferences to NU undergraduates. Is that true?
P.S. I am an international studnet. I know it is generally incredibly hard for us to get into medical schools. But I know there were three international students getting into medical schools at Notre Dame this year, and the premed advisor at Northwestern said he didn't know any international students have made it to medical school yet since 2003. Could anyone clarify it? Should I take that into account?
PPS. I don't feel like taking theology classes at Notre Dame. Theology is required at ND. I have the feeling that it would be my GPA killer.
I like both schools. I'm sorry if I offend anyone. I don't mean it.</p>
<p>It does not matter where finish off your undergrad, seriously. If you’re smart, stay at your current college- then you’ll have a high GPA and you can get into many medical schools.</p>
<p>Get a good MCAT and keep your science and overall GPA’s up (at least above a 3.3 for science) and you’ll have a shot. Your UG doesn’t matter. Transferring won’t help, especially if you took all your core courses at a different school.</p>
<p>There simply won’t be any measurable advantage or disadvantage with adcoms whether you’re applying from Northwestern or Notre Dame. Median grades in the advanced science classes you’d be taking do tend to be significantly higher than in intro level courses at NU. But this is generally true at most colleges (and at ND, I would suspect).</p>